Evaluating the Economic Significance of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity
The existence of downward nominal wage rigidity has been abundantly documented, but what are its economic implications? This paper demonstrates that, even when wages are allocative, downward wage rigidity can be consistent with weak macroeconomic effects. Firms have an incentive to compress wage increases as well as wage cuts when downward wage rigidity binds. By neglecting compression of wage increases, previous literature may have overstated the costs of downward wage rigidity to firms. Using microdata from the US and Great Britain, I find that evidence for compression of wage increases when downward wage rigidity binds. Accounting for this reduces the estimated increase in aggregate wage growth due to wage rigidity to be much closer to zero. These results suggest that downward wage rigidity may not provide a strong argument against the targeting of low inflation rates.
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Copy CitationMichael W. Elsby, "Evaluating the Economic Significance of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity," NBER Working Paper 12611 (2006), https://doi.org/10.3386/w12611.Download Citation
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Published Versions
Elsby, Michael W.L., 2009. "Evaluating the economic significance of downward nominal wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 154-169, March. citation courtesy of 
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